Health Clinics in Schools

The Times is doing a disservice to the student population enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District and contributing to the hysteria and hype of Planned Parenthood (“The Promise of Campus Clinics,” Editorial, Aug. 2).

Our organization, composed of parents and students and community residents in L.A. Unified, researched these so-called clinics on school campuses and found them to be (1) a tool of Planned Parenthood’s attempts to turn our high schools and junior highs into abortion referral centers; (2) the dissemination of birth-control information and devices, and (3) the teaching of value-free sex education.

The Times is helping to undermine the role of the parents.

All of the health care to be offered is a duplication of what the school nurse does or what is available at the community health level. Any major illness or injury will still have to be sent off campus.

The schools, who are entrusted with our youth, encourage them to say no to drugs, no to gangs and yes yes yes to sex. The clinics will offer no lasting solution to the problem of teen pregnancy outside of marriage. The U.S. secretary of education, William J. Bennett, has said in reference to the clinics, “It encourages those children who do not have sexual intimacy on their minds to be mindful of it. Or it suggests to these young people that they are somehow behind the times.” It thrusts upon those young people with scruples about sexual intimacy, a new publicly legitimized possibility.

With AIDS now accelerating in the heterosexual community, how can the L.A. Board of Education promote sexual activity outside of marriage, which is unlawful (penal code 261.5 states that sexual intercourse is unlawful with a minor female under 18 years of age)?

An independent study showed that these clinics produced lower teen-age birth rates, higher abortion rates and no reduction in teen-age pregnancies. The facts are that passing out condoms, etc. will not protect our children from venereal diseases which are skyrocketing and AIDS which will kill our children. Contraceptive use by teen-agers is terribly ineffective. So why promote these clinics as a savior?

School Board member Roberta Weintraub has stated that despite the current state law allowing physicians to perform abortions without parental consent if a girl is over 12, the school board will not permit abortions or abortion referrals at the three high school clinics. Our organization does not believe that this school board will risk losing federal and state money by breaking the law because they are really concerned with parents’ permission. When 2,000 parents marched against these sex clinics in San Fernando, a school board member said the protesters can march all they want, these clinics are going in.

But now we have Weintraub looking after our children’s interest. We say resoundly, no thanks.

FRANK MADRID

Director, Network of Parents

and Students Against

School Sex Centers

Norwalk